Who Protects the Basket?

Over the last few months, Omer Asik has been involved in lots of trade discussion. However, the question to most fans is why would a team want to trade for a player that has career averages of 5 points and 7 rebounds? The analytically savvy may be aware of Asik’s worth on defense, but how do you quantify it? Here’s another question: with 2 bigs who are so-called rim protectors, which one of the Rockets’ big men is actually better? Before screaming “Dwight,” continue reading below.

In a previous article, we looked at the value of contesting shots. However, rim protection entails more than just contesting shots. We need to look at how often the defender blocks shots as well. Together, by combining a player’s contest/altered frequency with his blocks frequency, we can develop a rim protection rate statistic. So who is protecting the basket?

We can look at this a few ways. First, rather than just presenting a table of information, let’s look at rim protection in the form of a heat map.

Learn About Tableau

We see some interesting if not completely surprising names here. Brandan Wright has long been a per minute star, averaging a 21.2 Player Efficiency Rating over the last 2 years. He also finished with a 2.2 xRAPM last year and was on the plus side in the previous year. After missing the first 23 games with an injury, Wright is back and playing well. However, the assumption with Wright has long been that he’s too thin to muscle with the big boys down low. Yet, despite his skinny frame, he has a long wingspan that is able to help him block an above average amount of shots and contest whatever he doesn’t block. If Wright is able to stay healthy, he’s a player to keep an eye on.

We see that Asik is one of the better rim protectors as well. In fact, we see that he protects the rim at a better rate AND allows a lower FG% at the rim on those contested shots than Dwight Howard. As has been mentioned in many rumors surrounding Asik, the Rockets are actually better defensively when he is on the court then when Dwight is. Does this mean Houston is trading away the wrong center? That would be taking it a bit far — Dwight is still much better offensively and while he hasn’t been as good as Asik at protecting the rim, he isn’t chopped liver either.

Brook Lopez finished with the highest Contest+ so it is not surprising to see him leading the way in rim protection. While he only blocks shots 0.6% more than the average big man (PFs and Cs), he is able to get his hand up and at least contest or alter most shots.

When I first ran the numbers in the previous article for contest frequency, I was surprised to see Serge Ibaka with a relatively low contest/altered frequency. Alas, it was only because he was too busy blocking nearly 25% of the shots attempted against him near the basket!

However, perhaps the biggest surprise on this list is Tyson Chandler, the one time DPOY. With a 45.8% rim protection rate, he comes in as one of the worst players in our sample and worse, he is 8% worse than the average big man which you can see visually with the “cold” blue box.

One thing I’m sure we all noticed when looking at rim protection rate is that many of the names we would expect to see at the top are actually not at the top. So are guys like Roy Hibbert, Tim Duncan, and Marc Gasol not as good as we expect? Is rim protection rate perhaps misleading? Is rim protection FG% actually the better statistic? It’s hard to answer the last question without having a larger sample size and observing how both rim protection rate and FG% vary over time. However, we can plot rim protection rate vs. rim protection FG% to see if there are significant differences.

Learn About Tableau

Well that is pretty messy. The correlation coefficient is actually not as bad as the graph looks (-0.26) and the fact that the two statistics are negatively correlated is certainly a good thing — i.e. as rim protection rate goes up, rim protection FG% should go down. Theoretically at least. Still, it’s not a very strong correlation and leaves us asking the question, Which of these metrics is stronger in predicting a team’s defensive efficiency?

We also have one other metric we can look at: close frequency. What is close frequency? It is the percentage of a player’s shots defended that came near the basket. We can get an idea of which players are always near the basket and which players wander around a bit more and are guarding shots further away from the hoop.

Learn About Tableau

In the graph above, the players with larger bubbles are guarding a higher percentage of their shots near the basket. We see that some of the past DPOYs like Marc Gasol, Tyson Chandler, Tim Duncan and perhaps this years DPOY Roy Hibbert do not have the largest bubbles. The percentage of shots they have defended near the basket range from about 60%-65%, which means that about 35%-40% of the shots they have defended are at mid-range or near the 3 point line. Of course, with the 3-seconds-in-the-paint rule, no one can maintain a 100% rate here because ultimately you have to leave the paint. In the future, we will look at the distribution of each player’s shots defended along with his defensive usage (Vantage tracks shots defended per chance). We can also use the distribution of shots to develop an expected points per shot metric.

For now though, we can see which players are near the basket the most (close freq), which players attempt to protect the basket (RP rate) and which players successfully protect the basket (RP FG%).

Learn About Tableau

Finally, as a refresher, it’s worth visually seeing what the difference between getting an open shot under the basket versus if that shot is contested:

Almost every player in the league allows a higher FG% when the shot is open versus if it is contested. And we can see a clear difference between the two types of shot defenses.

ABOUT

Vantage sells player development and analytics products for esports and the NBA.

Israel's Lonah Salpeter mistakenly stops running a lap early when in second place in the women's 5,000m and Britain's Eilish McColgan charges through to snap up silver behind Dutch winner Sifan Hassan.

• Neil Black thinks there is more to come from the sprinter• Asher-Smith’s coach John Blackie credited with key roleDina Asher-Smith’s “out of this world” treble at the European Championships was the best display by a British track competitor in a generation, according to the UK Athletics performance director, Neil Black.Asher-Smith will go for 100m, […]

As we bid farewell to the first multi-sport European Championships, it wasn’t just the athletes and competitors showcasing their talents in Glasgow and Berlin, the sports photographers present also used the event to demonstrate their own skills and technique Continue reading...

In Berlin’s Olympic stadium and on the streets for the marathon - what a weekend it has been. As always, I want to hear your stories, so share your highlights and lowlights below the line What a fabulous weekend that was. On Friday morning I flew to Berlin for the European athletics championships. Since then […]

• Men’s 4x100m gold lifts GB to total haul of 74 medals• Russia secure trophy for top spot with 31 gold medalsGreat Britain and Northern Ireland took second place in the overall medal standings as the multi-sport European Championships concluded in Berlin and Scotland on Sunday night.An athletics gold in the concluding men’s 4x100m raised […]

• 22-year-old leads team home at European Championships• Laura Muir wins her first outdoor gold in 1500mSometimes athletics is a simple sport. A bunch of people run round a track and at the end Dina Asher-Smith wins another gold medal. On the final evening of these European Championships, however, the 22-year-old looked desperately up against […]

The British athletics team has potential but it is punishingly hard to win on the global stageFourteen years ago, during the Athens Olympic Games, Dina Asher-Smith drew a picture of herself with six words scribbled underneath: “I want to win the Olympics.” After what we have seen in Berlin this past week, that increasingly looks […]

• Belarusian shakes off Clemence Calvin at finish to secure win• 29-year-old had nosebleed 30 minutes into 2hr 26min raceVolha Mazuronak survived a horrendous nose bleed and a wrong turn at the finish to win a thrilling European Championship women’s marathon. Related: Jakob Ingebrigtsen, 17, wins 5,000m gold less than a day after 1500m triumph […]

Brilliant Norweigan takes European Championships by stormJakob even tried to high-five his brother, Henrik, during raceThe 17-year-old Jakob Ingebrigtsen made history for the second night in a row to claim a European 5000m gold – less than 24 hours after he had become the youngest athlete to ever win the 1500m title. Related: Katarina Johnson-Thompson […]

• Briton beats world champion Schippers with 21.89sec• Asher-Smith had already won gold in 100mTwo down, one to go. On an evening where the westerlies carried the first hints of autumn Dina Asher-Smith lit up the Olympiastadion with a scalding display of power and poise to add the European Championships 200m title to the 100m […]

• Briton believes working on shot put and javelin has paid off• ‘I feel like I’ve figured out the heptathlon’Katarina Johnson-Thompson has promised she will be even better in 2019 after smashing her heptathlon personal best to win European Championships silver in Berlin on Friday. She also revealed that a calf injury was so serious […]

The inaugural event in Berlin and Glasgow has proved to be a success, particularly on televisionThe inaugural European Championships – this hotchpotch, hybrid conglomerate of several sports bundled into one sporting feast – concludes on Sunday in Berlin and Glasgow and the many satellite Scottish sites that have been roped in, in the cause of […]

• Norwegian becomes youngest ever European champion• Matthew Hudson-Smith races to 400m win for BritainSeventeen-year-old Jakob Ingebrigtsen became the youngest European champion in history by claiming a shock gold on a night where Britain won four more medals in Berlin, including gold for Matthew Hudson-Smith.Ingebrigtsen, one of three Norwegian brothers in the men’s 1500m final, […]

• British heptathlete finishes 57 points behind Nafi Thiam• Johnson-Thompson led Belgian by 87 points overnightTime and time again Katarina Johnson-Thompson threw everything bar her size-eight spikes at Nafi Thiam. First came a 200m that ranked as the fastest ever in a European Championship heptathlon. Then a javelin personal best just when her Belgian rival […]

• Muir back to her best after altitude training in Switzerland• No British woman has won European gold at 1500mLaura Muir has declared herself fit, confident and ready to make history after recovering from an achilles niggle that stopped her doubling up at the European Championships. Related: Laura Muir: ‘I would have a lot easier […]

• Briton leads heptathlon favourite Nafi Thiam by 87 points• ‘I just wanted to attack and it paid off,’ says Johnson-ThompsonKatarina Johnson-Thompson went toe to toe with the best female athlete on the planet during a compelling first day of the heptathlon – and ended it on the front foot and gunning for European Championship […]